1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for enhancing the versatility and operation of a M1911-style handgun and the operational reliability of a magazine for handguns and rifles and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus whereby a M1911-style handgun is modified to shoot .50 caliber ammunition and also ammunition of reduced calibers with a substantially reduced recoil and muzzle flip.
2. Background Information
The M1911-style handgun was initially developed and commercialized by John Browning in the year 1911. This handgun employed a then-novel mechanism for firing in a semiautomatic fashion substantially large cartridges of .45 caliber, for example .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridges. This handgun is sometimes referenced as the Government Model 1911 and was for many years favored for use in the U.S. military and served as a hand weapon for U.S. soldiers in the World Wars. This weapon is still favored for personal defense, because it is capable of shooting a relatively large bullet which has substantial “stopping power” when used against animals or humans.
In operation of the M1911-style handgun, there is considerable recoil and the muzzle of the handgun tends to flip up when the gun is fired. Recoil is herein defined as the shock and pressure transmitted by the gun to the hand when the gun is fired and muzzle flip is the tendency of the muzzle of the gun to rise out of alignment with a target when the gun is fired. It is known that the degree of perceived recoil and muzzle flip are to a large extent a function of the combined mass of the barrel and slide of the gun, which move in a characteristic linear reciprocating manner when the gun is fired.
In operation of the M1911-style handgun, the barrel and slide are mechanically engaged and initially move together about 0.125 inch (0.318 cm) toward the shooter in reaction to the discharge of a cartridge and, after movement together over this distance, the barrel is then automatically pulled down by a well known mechanical link and is physically disconnected from the slide. The barrel is then stopped when its back end engages the frame of the gun, and the slide continues to move backwards toward the shooter in reaction to the force of the shot. The slide moves toward the shooter against the force of a return spring which is fully compressed when the slide reaches its furthest rearward position with respect to the shooter.
As the slide moves back toward the shooter, a known extractor mechanism pulls the cartridge case out of the barrel chamber and a known ejector mechanism in the gun engages a rim formed at the rear of the case of the ammunition cartridge and expels the empty case from the body of the gun. Of course, the case of the cartridge is empty, because it has previously been fired and the bullet has been expelled from the case and has passed down the barrel of the gun toward a target. After ejecting the spent case, the slide reaches its rearmost position and, under the force of the return spring, slides forward to its front stationary position.
As the slide moves forward, a known breech face within the gun strips the next successive cartridge from the top of a magazine that holds a number of cartridges under the pressure of a magazine spring within the magazine. The fresh cartridge is fed into the barrel chamber of the gun in a position from which it is fired when a trigger of the gun is pulled.
One disadvantage of current M1911-style magazines is that the nose of a cartridge sometimes will drop or dive as the cartridge is fed into the breech of the gun, and the cartridge can therefore become jammed. An improved magazine for avoiding this problem would therefore be desirable and is disclosed herein. The slide, barrel, and cartridge extracting and ejecting mechanisms operate in the described known manner to automatically remove spent cartridge cases and load fresh cartridges in response to successive pulls of the trigger, until the magazine is empty, at which point the slide is held in an open battery position, awaiting the next loaded magazine.
When the pistol fires, a large amount of the developed energy is transformed into kinetic energy of the slide and barrel. This energy is then further transferred to the frame of the pistol and the hand holding the frame, as the slide and barrel hit the frame at their rearward stop positions. The combined mass of the barrel and slide hitting the frame of the gun causes the recoil that is felt in the hand holding the gun. The recoil also tends to jerk up the muzzle of the barrel from its aligned position with respect to a target. The recoil resulting from the firing of a .45 ACP cartridge can therefore cause some discomfort to the hand of the shooter and it will also be necessary for the shooter to realign the muzzle of the gun with the target after each shot. The relatively substantial recoil and muzzle flip associated with M1911-style handguns has been a significant drawback in the use of such guns, but the desirable results achieved by a relatively large .45 caliber bullet has maintained the popularity of the M1911-style gun for self-defense for nearly a century.
Although the appearance and function of the M1911-style handgun have been favored by many shooters over considerable time, there have been attempts to reduce the perceived recoil and muzzle flip when the gun is fired. For example, it has been proposed to form or attach a weight to the muzzle of the barrel to increase the mass of the barrel and also reduce muzzle flip in response to the discharge of a .45 caliber cartridge. It has therefore been recognized that increasing the mass of the barrel, particularly at the muzzle, will result in a decrease in perceived recoil and muzzle flip. It has also been suggested that reducing the relative mass of the slide will reduce perceived recoil, because a lighter slide reciprocating above the hand holding the gun will have reduced momentum and therefore less recoil. It has therefore been suggested that slots or other cutouts can be made in the standard M1911-style slide to remove material and therefore reduce the mass of the slide and associated recoil.
The heretofore proposed design changes for reducing perceived recoil and muzzle flip would necessarily require substantial cosmetic changes in the appearance of a M1911-style gun. However, a change in the appearance of the venerable, near century old handgun design has not been favored. Accordingly, M1911-style guns with the classic appearance and traditional slide and barrel masses are still produced in substantial quantities by many large firearm manufacturers.
Another reason for continuing the use of the classic M1911 design is that the total combined masses of the barrel and slide have been optimized to operate with a .45 caliber cartridge, and this optimized implementation of these large reciprocating masses has been adopted and continued over the years, despite the negative issues associated with perceived recoil and muzzle flip. However, it has long been felt that it would be desirable to retain the classic design and appearance of the M1911-style handgun, but alter the internal mechanism in some way to reduce perceived recoil and muzzle flip with use of the .45 ACP cartridge. No one has heretofore been able to achieve this result.
In recent years it has been recognized that the stopping power of a handgun is enhanced by use of cartridges of greater size and weight than the .45 ACP cartridge. Accordingly, revolvers and semiautomatic pistols have been developed to fire larger .50 caliber cartridges, which form a relatively large wound channel and therefore have substantially increased stopping power. For example, the DESERT EAGLE® semi-automatic pistol developed by Israel Military Industries Ltd., shoots a .50 caliber cartridge that is thicker and much longer than a .45 ACP cartridge. This .50 caliber pistol has a design that is substantially different than the design of the M1911-style handgun, and it is very large and very heavy in comparison. The .50 caliber DESERT EAGLE® pistol also has a very substantial recoil greatly in excess of what would be expected from a standard M1911-style handgun, and its large size and substantial weight make it difficult for many people to carry or use it for self-defense. Other pistols have also been developed to shoot .50 caliber bullets, for example in revolver-style mechanisms, again with substantial size, weight and recoil penalties.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a practical design for a M1911-style handgun that will allow the gun to shoot novel .50 caliber ammunition with a recoil and muzzle flip no greater than is typically associated with a .45 caliber M1911-style gun, and without changing the exterior appearance or weight of the gun.
It would also be advantageous to provide such a design for a M1911 handgun that would easily accommodate .50 caliber or .45 caliber cartridges and smaller .40 S&W, 9 mm or .38 Super cartridges, with associated substantial reductions in recoil and muzzle flip.
It would also be advantageous to utilize in a M1911-style handgun, a .50 caliber cartridge with a rebated base rim, for example as is used in rifles and in the DESERT EAGLE® pistol, so that .50 caliber ammunition can be used in the M1911-style handgun, without changing the .45 ACP caliber firing, extraction and ejector mechanisms that are typically used in the handgun. It would also be advantageous to provide .50 caliber cartridge cases with .45 ACP caliber-sized base rims and smaller diameter bullets, such as 9 mm, .38, .40 and .45 diameter bullets, so that the cartridges having such smaller bullets could also be used with the internal cartridge-handling mechanisms of a typical .45 ACP caliber M1911-style handgun.
It would also be desirable to provide an improved M1911-style handgun wherein the mass of a bull barrel used with the handgun is increased by thickening the wall of the barrel, and the mass of the associated slide is correspondingly decreased, from the inside of the slide, by routing out and thinning the walls of the slide to, in effect, redistribute mass from the slide to the barrel, in order to reduce perceived recoil and muzzle flip for any cartridge that is used, including a .50 caliber cartridge.
Finally, it would be desirable to provide magazines that will accommodate .50 caliber and smaller caliber cartridges for M1911-style handguns, and will reduce or eliminate nose-dive of rebated rim cartridges of any caliber for any firearms, including handguns and rifles of any type, which operate with rebated rim cartridges.